


Five Times Ada and Hecate Didn't Kiss

by cosmic_llin



Series: Right Here By My Side: An Ada/Hecate Pre-Canon Timeline [5]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: 5 Things, F/F, Mutual Pining, Pre-Canon, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 20:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15299592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: The summer before she becomes headmistress is the longest summer of Ada's life.





	Five Times Ada and Hecate Didn't Kiss

It was the longest summer of Ada’s life so far. Longer even than she summer before she’d come home to teach, or the summer that Agatha had been away at boot camp and Ada had wandered the grounds all by herself for endless weeks.

When September came, she’d be the headmistress. Everything she’d been preparing for her whole life was about to be real. She felt sick thinking about it, torn between anticipation and fear. She kept imagining generations of Cackle women, in a line that stretched behind her into the distance, watching to see if she could do it.

And then of course there was Hecate. Hecate, who she had chosen to be her deputy, and who had elected to spend her entire summer in the basement, meticulously reorganising the school’s copious and chaotic records.

Ada had protested, but Hecate had been adamant.

‘As your deputy,’ she’d said, ‘it’s my job to support you. And I won’t have you beginning your time as headmistress with the records in such disarray. We must start as we mean to go on, with efficiency and organisation.’

She’d smiled at Ada - one of those small, rare smiles that weren’t nearly so rare as they used to be - and Ada had reached out and squeezed her hand. A common enough thing these days, but when they touched Ada’s heart still beat faster, and before she could stop herself she had imagined pulling Hecate in, imagined Hecate responding with a soft, feather-light kiss.

She’d only thought it for a fraction of a second before managing to push it aside, but it had left an afterimage as though she’d been looking at a too-bright light.

‘Everything all right, Ada?’ Hecate had asked.

‘Yes, fine,’ she’d said. ‘Just... preoccupied, you know.’

Hecate had nodded with understanding. She knew enough Ada’s worries about taking over the school. She hadn’t pressed the matter.

* * *

‘Do you fancy a walk?’ Ada asked, popping her head around the corner.

Hecate was sitting crosslegged on the floor, surrounded by piles of yellowing paper. There were more pieces of paper gliding calmly through the air and coming to rest on the piles as she organised them.

‘I’m fine here,’ she said.

Ada looked at her. She did seem genuinely happy.

‘I don’t want to interrupt you, then,’ she said.

Hecate looked up, saw Ada’s face. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Do _you_ want to go for a walk?’

‘I am feeling a bit restless,’ Ada admitted.

‘Then I can certainly spare a bit of time to keep you company,’ Hecate said.

Ada summoned Hecate’s parasol before she could do it herself, and presented it to her with a flourish. Hecate took it and… was she blushing? Surely not. Hecate didn’t blush, and anyway why would she?

They fell easily into step as they walked out into the grounds, tracing their usual path down to the meadow and around, then through the orchard.

‘How are the records coming?’ Ada asked.

‘Very well,’ said Hecate. ‘I’m making good progress.’

‘Have you found much of interest? You looked very absorbed.’

‘Oh, you don’t want to hear all the details,’ Hecate said.

‘I do!’ said Ada. ‘Tell me, please?’

That was all the invitation Hecate needed to launch into a detailed summary of the older records she’d found. Some of them were apparently hundreds of years old and still in reasonable condition, but Hecate wanted to cast some fresh preservation spells before putting them back into storage. Ada tried hard to listen to the content of her words instead of just getting lost in the sound of her voice. That was happening with distressing regularity lately.

She wasn’t in love with Hecate. She _wasn’t_. It was just a crush. Which had lasted several years at this point. And seemed to be getting worse.

Several things happened at once.

Ada found herself falling towards the ground, she let out a yell, she felt Hecate’s hand close around her wrist, she felt gravity bring Hecate down with her, and then they landed on the ground.

They’d landed face to face, Hecate’s hand still wrapped around Ada’s wrist. They were both breathing hard.

‘Are you all right?’ Hecate asked.

‘Fine,’ said Ada, but in fact she didn’t know. She couldn’t focus on anything except Hecate’s closeness. They lay there for a moment, and the world seemed to slow down around them.

‘Ada…’ said Hecate, but she didn’t continue.

Ada watched her face, her slightly parted lips. Something was happening. Something was going to happen.

Hecate sat up, letting go of Ada’s wrist.

‘I think you slipped on a rotting apple,’ she said.

About the least romantic thing she could have said. Ada supposed she ought to be relieved.

* * *

There was a week that it rained almost without stopping. Ada persuaded Hecate to take a day off, and they curled up on either side of the fire in the staff room with their books, with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits between them.

It was so quiet. Even the other resident teachers weren’t around to disturb them. Some of them were away visiting family, or indulging in hobbies that fell by the wayside during termtime. Gwen spent most of the summer in the castle every year, but just now she had gone on her annual pilgrimage and wouldn’t be back for a day or two.

They were completely alone.

Ada tried not to watch Hecate. It wasn’t as though she was doing anything particularly provocative. Certainly nothing to invite Ada’s pulse to race, her mouth to dry. It wasn’t Hecate’s fault if Ada kept looking at her delicate fingers turning the pages, sliding down the leather binding, spreading to keep the book open, and thinking about other tasks they could be put to.

_Stop it, Ada!_ she scolded herself.

This wasn’t fair on Hecate, and it wasn’t exactly helpful for Ada either. She forced herself to concentrate on her book, but her mind kept travelling back to an unwelcome fantasy.

Ada would drop her book, cross to Hecate’s chair and climb to straddle her lap, lean in to kiss her with fierce, insistent kisses that Hecate returned with just as much urgency. Then those long, clever fingers would slide slowly up Ada’s thighs, pushing her skirt aside, and, oh, then…

_Stop it!_

She shook her head, as if that would jolt the idea loose, and poured another cup of tea with shaking hands.

* * *

Gwen returned the next evening, pale and subdued. Each year since Algernon’s disappearance she had gone alone to a place that had been special to them. Even Ada didn’t know where it was. But Gwen always needed cheering up when she got back to the castle.

Ada and Hecate had it down to a fine art by now. A comfy corner of the staff room. A mug of hot soup with a dash of calming potion if Gwen wanted, some light, meaningless chatter while she drank it, and then later a bottle of mead and three glasses while Gwen told them the story again of how she and Algernon had met.

Ada could have recited it word for word, but she and Hecate both listened while Gwen talked, and said kind things in the right places.

‘Do you know,’ said Gwen, draining the last of her mead, ‘I wouldn’t change a thing. Of course I’d have him back if I could, but even if I’d known what would happen, I wouldn’t have done anything differently. When you find true love, there’s nothing to do but grab it, whatever the risks. It’s better to regret the loss than regret that you never had it at all.’

Was it Ada’s imagination, or was Hecate suddenly looking anywhere but at her?

No, surely it was wishful thinking. But when Gwen went up to bed a little later, Hecate came and sat beside her on the sofa, close enough that they almost touched.

‘Poor Gwen,’ Hecate said. ‘I do hope she’ll be all right.’

‘Mmmmm,’ Ada agreed.

‘I can’t imagine…’ Hecate said.

But what it was she couldn’t imagine, she didn’t say.

They sat in silence for a moment. Hecate took a deep breath, as though she was about to say something more. But she didn’t.

‘Well,’ she said, after a while, ‘I should turn in.’

‘Let me walk you to your room,’ Ada said.

They walked in silence up the stairs, and Ada kept thinking she ought to make conversation, but she couldn’t think of anything sensible to talk about. At Hecate’s threshold they stopped.

‘Goodnight,’ said Hecate, opening the door.

‘Goodnight,’ said Ada.

Then they both stood there like idiots, just looking at each other. The moment stretched long enough that it seemed like it might turn into something else, but at last Hecate just smiled and went inside, closing the door behind her.

Ada swore under her breath. It didn’t help much.

* * *

The evening before the new term began, Ada was alone in her room, considering and rejecting every possible outfit for the next day.

There was a knock at the door, and Hecate entered in response to Ada’s invitation.

‘Are you having trouble?’ she asked.

Ada shrugged. ‘I can’t seem to decide which outfit is most… headmistress-y.’

Hecate looked at her. ‘Ada, you _are_ headmistress. So any of them.’

‘I just so want to make the right impression…’

‘All of the girls who were here last year already know you,’ Hecate pointed out, coming over to look more closely at the options. ‘As do the teachers. And the first-years will be so nervous that they won’t have time to pay attention to what you’re wearing.’

‘You’re right,’ Ada sighed. ‘I suppose I just… I so want it to go well.’

‘And it will.’ Hecate cast her eyes over the pile of clothes again. ‘But if it helps, I always think you look lovely in this one,’ she said, gesturing towards a pink dress that Ada had dismissed as insufficiently serious.

‘You do?’ Ada asked.

Hecate picked up the dress and came over, holding it up against Ada. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Definitely.’

‘It’s not… too frivolous? I was thinking perhaps this one…’

She picked up the bottle green skirt suit she’d been considering.

Hecate met her eyes. ‘You’re Ada Cackle, not Alma Cackle,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to be anybody but yourself.’

And suddenly a tear was rolling down Ada’s face.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Silly of me…’

Hecate reached up and brushed the tear away, and when she had done it she laid her palm against Ada’s cheek, stroked with her thumb.

‘You’ll be wonderful,’ she promised.

Ada took a shaky breath. ‘Hecate…’ she began.

There was a knock at the door. Hecate’s hand fell away, Ada stepped back, and by the time the door opened it was as though nothing had happened.

The rest of the resident teaching staff had come to wish her luck and present her with a sign with her name on it for her office door. It was sweet of them, and when they pressed her to come downstairs for a celebratory drink, she couldn’t refuse. Hecate only stayed for half an hour. She always liked to get an early night before the first day of term.

When the others finally let Ada go to bed, she tidied the clothes, hanging the pink dress up on the wardrobe door ready for tomorrow.

Perhaps she really would be wonderful.


End file.
